He went on to make life tough for Despaigne straight from the bell, boxing extremely aggressively and with a ferocious intensity, but the Cuban matched fire with fire, resulting in a high octane and highly entertaining bout, which saw the neutral crowd roaring its appreciation.

While it was Despaigne who looked like he was landing more of the blows, Abbadi was forcing him onto the back foot during the majority of the opening two rounds, giving him little chance to rest.

Abbadi looked as though he had burnt out a little coming into the third, however, and Despaigne was able reverse the roles to take command of the ring.

Despite Abbadi's commendable courage, the accuracy of the Despaigne's punches gave him the edge and he was eventually awarded a 3-0 victory by the judges.

Arisnoidys Despaigne snatched victory away from Ilyas Abbadi in a thrilling encounter on day seven of the World Boxing Championships


In the lightweight division, Ukraine's Dmytro Cherniak and Russia;s Dmitry Polyanskiy went blow for blow in a gruelling encounter, which saw Cherniak progress to the next round.

Neither boxer felt the need to back off in this early afternoon bout, each standing firm and looking to trade punches with the other.

The two fighters seemed to use the early minutes of the fight to showcase their prolific combinations, taking it in turns to take the brunt of the other's punches.

As the bout progressed Cherniak began to get the edge on his opponent, landing the harder of the blows and looking more dangerous than Polyanskiy.

In the end the judges awarded Cherniak a 3-0 victory, with the two fighters embracing in a show of mutual recognition after a truly gripping encounter.

Another close bout saw American lightweight Kenneth Sims Jr go toe-to-toe with Uzbekistan's London 2012 Olympian Fazliddin Gaibnazarov.

Sims was hoping to avenge fellow American Jose Ramírez, who lost to Gaibnazarov at last summer's Games, but Gaibnazarov had other ideas and left Sims to suffer the same fate as his compatriot.

Despite going into the third round with two of the judge's scorecards still in the balance, Sims was unable to capitalise and Gaibnazarov took a unanimous 3-0 win.

American lightweight Kenneth Sims Jr red went toe to toe with 2012 Olympian Fazliddin Gaibnazarov of Uzbekistan


British Olympic silver medallist Fred Evans also managed to grind out a victory over Zaal Kvachatadze of Georgia in today's action.

Welterweight Evans was not at his best and found himself in some difficult exchanges in the first round of the bout but he managed to pick things up going into the second round and the southpaw began to use the ring well, picking his opponent off on the way in.

The Georgian continued to pose problems in the final round however and worked hard to change the outcome of the fight.

In the end, however, Welshman Evans was able to hold on and moved on to the next round of the competition.

"I'm always the same in competition, I'm always a bit rusty on my first fight," said Evans.

"I fought him before in the 2011 Europeans so I knew what I had to do.

"Obviously I'm happy that's out of the way, so that I can come out sharper for the next one."

The biggest surprise of the day came in the bout between "Road to Almaty" boxer Alaa Ghoussoun of Syria and Croatia's World Series of Boxing (WSB) star Hrvoje Sep.

Sep was trying to box from the inside throughout the fight, but his constant efforts to get close were hindered by Ghoussoun, who did his best to keep the veteran at a safe distance.

Sep looked out of sorts and could not seem to find his groove during the match-up.

Desperate to keep the bout at close quarters, the Croatian was finally warned for holding, in what was proving to be a rather ugly affair.

Ghoussoun continued to hold Sep at bay and shocked the crowd when the judges voted in his favour to give him a 2-1 victory.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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